How to change an LLC name

The steps

1. Check the new name. It has to meet the same rules as any new LLC's name in the state: an ending such as LLC, and a name the state can tell apart from the ones already on its register. Search it in your state (LLC name search by state) and read the LLC naming rules. If you need time to file, reserve the name.

2. Approve the change. Follow the operating agreement, which may say who decides and by what vote, and record the decision in a written consent the members sign.

3. File the amendment with the state. It's the same office that formed the LLC, and the filing is usually called articles or a certificate of amendment. Each state's filing and fee is in the table below.

4. Amend the operating agreement to the new name, in an operating agreement amendment the members sign.

5. Tell the IRS. The EIN stays the same; how you report the new name depends on how the LLC files, as the section below explains.

6. Amend every foreign registration. An LLC registered to do business in other states amends each registration too. Texas, for one, wants the amendment within 91 days of the change.

7. Update everything else that carries the name: bank accounts and cards, state tax accounts, business licenses and permits, insurance, contracts and invoices, the website, signs and online profiles.

What each state files and charges

Fees from each office's own fee schedule, form or statute, read on October 10, 2026; each filing links to its source, and where an office charges differently online and on paper the table gives both. Each state's name opens its LLC name search, to check the new name before you file.

The fee runs from $15 in Montana to $220 in Delaware and DC: 33 states charge $50 or less, and seven charge more than $100. Hawaii has a filing just for this, an amendment to change the LLC's name, for $25. Georgia's $30 is a $20 filing fee plus the $10 service charge the Secretary of State adds to most filings.

What stays the same

A new name doesn't make a new company. The LLC keeps its members, its formation date, its EIN, its bank accounts and its contracts and debts; a lender or landlord deals with the same company under its new name. What changes is the name on the state's record and, once you've updated them, on everything else. Until you have, keep both names on hand: a payment made out to the old name, or a license still in it, belongs to the same LLC.

Telling the IRS

An LLC keeps its EIN when its name changes: the IRS's list of when to get a new EIN puts a change of name among the changes that don't need one. The IRS's business name change page sorts the rest by how the business files:

• An LLC taxed as a partnership, as most LLCs with more than one member are, marks the name change box on Form 1065: page 1, line G, box 3. If this year's return is already filed, it writes to the IRS at the address where it files instead, in a letter a partner signs.
• An LLC taxed as a corporation marks the box on its return: Form 1120, page 1, line E, box 3, or Form 1120-S, page 1, line H, box 2. Otherwise it writes to the IRS, in a letter a corporate officer signs.
• A single-member LLC that reports on its owner's return has no return of its own to mark, so the owner writes to the IRS at the address where they file, as the IRS asks a sole proprietor to.

Ask for an acknowledgment in the letter if you want proof the IRS has the new name; it sends one on request. If the EIN is new and the LLC hasn't filed a return yet, write to the address where it will file.

A new name or a DBA?

An LLC doesn't have to change its legal name to trade under another one. It can register an assumed or trade name, a DBA, and keep its legal name on the state's record: that suits a second brand or a product line, while a full name change suits an LLC that's dropping the old name for good. Our sister site explains what is a DBA, with each state's filing and fee.

Sources: each state's filing office, linked in the table; the IRS's pages on a business name change (last reviewed February 22, 2026) and on when to get a new EIN (July 21, 2026); and the Texas Secretary of State's answers on foreign entities, read on October 10, 2026.